Thursday, November 6, 2014

I'm not going to go into detail about how I was this huge Star Wars geek and then one day I just lost my taste for the stuff. So I haven't paid much attention to the roar of the J.J. Abrams Star Wars machine. Now that they have unveiled a title, which is so underwhelming it will bore me to sleep to even write it here.

So, as I am the worst, laziest kind of blogger, especially here, I was thinking about my favorite stuff from Star Wars. My favorite aesthetic stuff, background stuff, bit characters, because really, that's the stuff that really paints the Star Wars universe for me. One of the issues with the prequels is that being so CG heavy, you no longer had these tiny bits of "weirdness" in the background. It was a whole bunch of noise.

So if I were at the helm of SW7, here are a few things that I would like to see again -

RANCOR KEEPERS

Who is this guy? What is the rancor? Did this guy raise the rancor from birth? I know, I know, there's probably a slew of EU books that tell the whole story, but I've never seen those as "canon" or rather, I've never gotten around to reading those dry, chalky reads. I imagined this guy found the rancor, raised him on his own, trained him, and then found a sweet gig at Jabba's palace where he could keep the rancor fed on those who displeased Jabba. The death or the rancor must have really weighed on the guy. Sucks.

ORIGINAL CANTINA WEREWOLF

They needed monsters, so there you go, a wolfman mask. But really, how this dude is lit in the original 1977 version is really downright creepy and atmospheric. I imagined he was from a planet of werewolves. A planet of werewolves, which I think was an unfinished Hammer production.

Bo'Marr Monk

The B'omarr Order, which consisted of the B'omarr Monks, was a mysterious religious order that moved to the planet Tatooine around 700 BBY. The B'omarr believed that cutting themselves off from all physical sensation would further their studies, and allow them to ponder the galaxy and achieve enlightenment. When a monk became enlightened, his brain was removed through a special procedure, and was placed in a nutrient-filled jar. The brains were held in very high regard by the lower, embodied monks, who saw to their every need, though the brains rarely did anything other than think and wonder. When they did need to travel around their monastery on Tatooine, the brains were transferred into specially modified BT-16 perimeter droids.

That text comes from a Star Wars wiki page, so they know a lot more than me, but it's a spider robot carrying around a brain in a special jar.

Tosche Station

Because after all that build-up, I mean, what the fuck are power converters? Is it something as simple as a part for a sky hopper? Look how blissed out Camie and Fixer are. I'm thinking Tosche Station is something more in line with the Korova Milkbar.

Mynocks

Great concept. Cool name. "Mynocks...chewing on the power cables." They're probably the most Star Trekky monster to show up in Star Wars.

Random Junk Droids

I always loved those scenes aboard the sandcrawler. These random droids falling over everywhere. Junk, rust, it really made for a mood. Really painted a setting like we hadn't seen before. That dude in the middle is especially cool.

~CHAPTER ONE~

It began when I acquired an envelope of strange photographs that I am sharing here. The envelope had been tucked into a ragged copy of the rare 19th century tome, Unexplored Places of the Empire. I have taken these to many local photographers and none of them could agree on the camera, film stock, or process used to capture these odd images.

On the back of each photo was a notation in blue ink. Some of them are barely legible, but I have done the best to reproduce them below.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

To prevent the catastrophic cosmic collapse of a dying star, the most powerful interdimensional wizards gathered on a fragile planet to summon Ghrolthakon - The Eater of Stars. They built an immense stone tower that reached from the planet's crust and into the empty void of space. At the top of the tower, they performed a thousand year ritual to build a dimensional prison around the star. When they finished, they offered up the disintegrating planet as a sacrifice to Ghrolthakon. Ghrolthakon swam through the black sea of space and devoured the dying star.

Ghrolthakon swims between worlds, in the boiling seas of newborn planets, through the gaseous hearts of red giants. Her brood falls through invisible chasms of space and time and into known and unknown worlds where they grew into silver-skinned collosi that swam beneath the waves or giants of mud and rock that writhed within the fiery chambers of the earth.

The sea-born and the two-legged beasts of the woods came to know them, and together they made pacts and sacred covenants with those of Ghrolthakon's kindred - among them were the Atalacamani - the sea-born women who would change their shape to walk among creatures both foul and fair. Ghrolthakon's eldest daughter Abakhatan is their queen and she swims in an ancient ocean of primordial blood at the core of the world.

The Atalacamani are a dark reflection of the selkies and sirens that have vexed sailors for centuries. They are the cousins of the horrible pennangalan, naga, and sigbin of Asiatic folklore, the foul and infamous legendarium of the Plateau of Leng, and of the shape-changing Buryat of Olhonsk who offered sacrifices to their hostess of the sea. Secret cults of men worshipped the Atalacamani by flagellating themselves with seaweed and finally castrating themselves, delivering their blood and genitals to the hungry sea.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

"But I did place upon his head and mine the two ends of my cosmic “radio”; hoping against hope for a first and last message from the dream-world in the brief time remaining."-Beyond the Wall of Sleep

ANTIQUARIAN

(Lux and Ivy and their wizard-beast-horde of obscure recordings culled from the deepest recesses of the human psyche. Their home was said to also contain artifacts of the ancient cult of Goo Goo Muck)"Our museum was a blasphemous, unthinkable place, where with the satanic taste of neurotic virtuosi we had assembled an universe of terror and decay to excite our jaded sensibilities."-The Hound

ARTIST

“It is new, indeed, for I made it last night in a dream of strange cities; and dreams are older than brooding Tyre, or the contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon.”- The Call of Cthulhu

CLERGY

“I hope you won’t stay till after dark. And I beg of you to let that thing on the table—the thing that looks like a match box—alone. We don’t know what it is, but we suspect it has something to do with what he did. We even avoid looking at it very steadily.”-The Evil Clergyman

CRIMINAL

"Messrs. Ricci and Silva were experienced in the art of making unwilling persons voluble, and the screams of a weak and exceptionally venerable man can be easily muffled..."-The Terrible Old Man

DILETTANTE

"It’s you who are cheaply sentimental now! You know well that the old things had better be let alone. All of you had better look out if ever I chant the old rites or try to call up what lies hidden in Yuggoth, Zimbabwe, and R’lyeh!"- Medusa's Coil

In Development

weird fantasy on distant worlds

UP THE DUNGEON PUNKS!

Online repository for ideas and ruminations on my current and developing RPG projects and campaigns. Inspired by weirdness and powered by the strange, the first four Black Sabbath albums, and Ballast Point Sculpin.